Liberalism, a bourgeois and therefore rightwing ideology, is the most effective attack on class consciousness and the cause of equality (the result of real equity), workers empowerment and universal human dignity, communism, yet. And the bourgeoisie understand this well. They understand fascism is not possible to achieve or sustain without it's own "left wing", its own "moderates". And so it is, that liberalism is the leftwing of fascism. Fascism has no roots in or existence in socialism or communism. Fascism is not merely authoritative government, it is by definition a tool of capital for the preservation of capital and class.
The phrase "scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds", and its variants, originated within leftist and anti-imperialist political discourse, long before Jonah Goldberg's 2008 book, an obvious effort to rehabilitate Nazism, fascism and capitalism with misdirection and lies, especially by omission.
It's well documented that during the 1920s–1930s, the Communist International (Comintern) adopted the position that social democrats and moderate liberals were "social fascists" — not merely allies of capitalism, but active enforcers of bourgeois rule who would inevitably side with reactionary forces against revolutionary movements. Today people are more naturally inclined to say "liberal fascist" or even "rainbow fascist", as the "social" has been de-emphasized (after all, "There's no such thing as society" for fascists). This was especially prominent during the "Third Period" (1928–1933), when communists viewed reformist leftists as the main obstacle to revolution, even more dangerous than open fascists. These communist have been proven right by history, as today the fake electoral left is as bad or worse than the ostensibly rightwing and pro-fascist. Trump and global Western fascism today, genocide and all, would not be possible without liberals siding with their natural allies, fascists. Capitalists, over the genuine, anti-capitalist, left. Because in truth caitalism and fascism are one, liberals apply endless hypocritical exceptionalism to avoid facing this reality.
The Black Panther Party later popularized a proverbial form in the U.S., using it to critique "liberal" politicians and institutions that rhetorically supported civil rights but upheld systemic oppression through capitalism, policing, poverty and war. Similar phrases appear in 1982 writings referencing British leftism and was used by activists like Larry Carter in the poverty movement to highlight how neoliberal elites claim and parade moral progressivism while enabling repressive policies and the massive global immiseration of capitalist empire.
While Jonah Goldberg claimed the term "liberal fascism" came from H.G. Wells in 1932, he did not invent the concept, nor was he the first to use it critically. The left's use of the idea predates him by decades, not as a rhetorical weapon against the fake-left and liberalism, but as a revolutionary critique of liberalism’s role in preserving capitalist/fascist domination, through bribe, fraud or force, through authoritarian means.
Goldberg’s book repurposed and distorted this critique, flipping it to accuse the American left, not merely liberals, of fascist roots, a claim widely rejected by historians of various stripes. Scholars like Robert Paxton and Roger Griffin emphasize that fascism is inherently anti-left, anti-socialist, and anti-liberal, emerging from ultra-nationalist, authoritarian right-wing movements, not progressive ones. Other works exposing, from the left, the rightwing and pro-fascist, if not fascist, nature; Leon Trotsky, Georg Lukács, Bertolt Brecht, Domenico Losurdo, Gabriel Rockhill, Herman Wallace & George Jackson, Allan E. S. Lumba, Georgi Dimitrov, Palmiro Togliatti, Vladimir Lenin (The State and Revolution), Prabhat Patnaik and many, many more. All excluded for the most part from Western education and consciousness under liberalism, capitalism, fascism.
The original critical use of the term, "liberal fascism", is leftwing, anti-fascist and anti-capitalist, a warning that liberalism is innately fascist and pro-fascist because it is innately pro-capitalist and pro-capitalism, facilitating or enabling covert and overtly fascist outcomes by defending capitalist hierarchy. As opposed to Goldberg’s polemic, which is misdirection and the rehabilitation of rebranded fascism and Nazism, eg Zionism and US humanitarian Interventionism (ie imperialism).
The importance of defeating and supplanting liberalism for the genuine, anti-capitalist, left, cannot be overstated. It is a ideology the bourgeoisie has deliberately propagated to divide and us, cripple us intellectually, and twist us into supporting fascism/capitalism. And yes, fascism is capitalism. if there's a difference, it's that we save the word "fascist" for when capitalist imperialism and domination is done to white people in Europe, or our honorary whites.
Please discuss. Save any Ad Hominems, they are low brow and lazy.
Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds, every time. Trans liberal extremists will mostly stand with fascism to defend capitalism.